Whoville: Who Ya’ Lovin? Part 1 – I John 4:7-21

About This Message

Psychiatrists say that three of the greatest needs of a human being are the need to be wanted, the need to be needed, and the need to be loved. Understanding God’s love for us is the key to living a life of love. John 13 verse 34 says, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

Why Is Loving God and Others so Important?

1.) Psychological: Your feelings of longing and love affect your mind and the way you think. When you are in love, you want to go out there and conquer the world. Your psychological feelings create passion and energy.

2.) Physical: Love increases blood flow to the skin due which helps keep it soft and smooth, and reduce the development of wrinkles. Love also acts as an ‘anti-aging’ hormone, which produces feelings of youth and vitality.

3.) Interpersonal: When you are in love you are naturally nicer to people. However, when you are in sadness you shy away from people and don’t want them to talk to you. You stay in the shadows and lick your wounds.

1. God’s love is Personal

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. I John 4:7 (NIV)

2. God’s love is Contagious

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 1 John 4:11-12 (NIV)

3. God’s love is Spiritual

This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. 1 John 4:13-16 (NIV)